Focused, hands-on DevOps and server-side problems with hints, feedback, and automated solution checks.
node-01 is due for maintenance, and it hosts two of the three checkout-api replicas. Add a PodDisruptionBudget so the drain can never take checkout below two available replicas, then drain the node.
An nginx Deployment runs fine, but its address returns an error. Trace the path from the Ingress to the Pod and fix the manifests.
node-02 is back from a kernel upgrade but still shows Ready,SchedulingDisabled, and the Pods that can only run on it are stuck in Pending. Bring the node back into service and get the workload running, without touching the workload itself.
A storefront needs eight replicas, and the platform team wants them split down the middle between the two availability zones. An uneven split must be refused by the scheduler rather than quietly tolerated.
The security team left five NetworkPolicy files on the workstation. Only one of them lets the frontend reach the backend while granting nothing more. Identify it and deploy it, unchanged.
A worker node dropped to NotReady and part of the workload went with it. The container runtime is fine and the control plane is healthy; the trail leads from kubectl symptoms down into systemd and the kubelet configuration. Diagnose the node and bring it back.
A Snake game Deployment and ClusterIP Service are already running in the snake namespace. Create a Traefik Ingress that serves the game over HTTPS using an existing cert-manager-issued TLS Secret.
A Deployment running a distroless Chainguard nginx image (cgr.dev/chainguard/nginx) is deployed in the namespace webapps, fronted by a ClusterIP Service. Port-forward that Service to localhost port 3333 on cplane-01, use curl to save the response body to /home/laborant/index.html, and verify the file is accessible and contains the expected content.
A Job manifest at /home/laborant/batch-job.yaml is exiting with a non-zero exit status. The Job has limited retries configured. Inspect the cluster and the manifest to find the bug, fix it, and reapply.
Create a multi-container Pod with different user IDs per container while sharing a common group ID at the Pod level for collaborative file access.
